Here is a recipe for another popular soup, one made with green beans (zelená fazuľa) and potatoes (zemiaky). Green beans, the immature bean pods, are quite healthy. They are high in vitamin C, and also contain insoluble fibers which aid in digestion. The recipe comes from “Recepty starej mamy” (Grandmother’s recipes), a classic cookbook from 1984 by M. Martišová and F. Martiš. You will find this book on many kitchen shelves in Slovakia. Note, the recipe calls for 1.5 L of water (about 6.5 cups). The resulting soup was slightly too thick for my taste – I prefer more liquid soups. If I were to prepare it again, I would increase water by at least a cup – or use less flour.

Ingredients for making green bean soup, except basics such as flour, sugar and salt. Start by washing the beans (fazuľa).

Then get chopping. Cut off the ends and then slice the beans into sections about half an inch long. Add to boiling salted water (slaná voda) along with the potatoes (zemiaky), peeled and cubed. Cover and cook until both potatoes and beans get soft. This will take about 20 minutes (dvadsať minút).

Then prepare the flour mixture to thicken the soup, zápraška. Brown about 4 tablespoons of flour (múka) on about a quarter of a butter (masľo) stick. Also add about a teaspoon worth of paprika (mletá červená paprika). Stir into the soup.

Once the flour mixture dissolves (break up large chunks by squishing them along the side of the pot), add sour cream (kyslá smotana). I used only about 3/4 of the tub, although the recipe called for more. Next add about a tablespoon of sugar (cukor) and about a teaspoon of vinegar (ocot), to taste. Let go through boil to allow the flavors to mix. Finally, top with about a handful of finely chopped dill (kôpor).

Whenever I did this kind of soup (with green beans, ordinary beans, lentils, or mushrooms) when I added sour cream the sour cream always separated and kind of “granulated”. It did not homogenize within the water in a pot. What I am doing wrong? I heard from some people that it should not be too cold when adding it to the hot water. Or the water in the pot should not be hot, or after adding sour cream it should not boil anymore. Nothing worked for me. I asked my mom in Slovakia and she said she use some kind of sour cream for cooking (Smotana na varenie), I am not sure what does it mean, why is it good for cooking. So I use just milk or Half&Half less sugar or not at all and more vinegar. Does anybody have a suggestion?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a real answer for you either. The same happens to me. I found that adding the cream slowly reduces this, as well as having the cream well mixed with flour. The granules dissolve though if you let the soup go through boil for a while. That is, except few big ones, which I just scoop out or squish on the side of the pot. If anybody else out here has some tips, I would love to hear them!

My mom always adds the cream/flour mixture through a very fine strainer. It actually requires two people to do – one to stir the soup as the mixture is added and one to scrape the mixture through the strainer to ensure no clumps make it through. At the end, when there are clumps left in the bottom of the strainer, she puts them back in the bowl, mixes in with a bit of water to dilute and passes them through the strainer again to ensure all of it makes it into the soup. You could do it on your own, but it’s easier with two. The key is to stir in a little at a time (don’t try to pass the entire mixture through the strainer at once). Just a little at a time.

I am not sure that Rado is talking about the same problem. Of course, there is one issue – not to have flour clamps, which usually happens when you are not able to mix flour with sour cream, or even with water when making roux (zaprasku), however Rado (I think) is talking about sour cream not able to mix with the soup and leaving kind of white granules that does not homogenize with the rest of soup.

It happens to me as well. It does not do anything to taste but it does not look so good when presented on a table. I’ve tried different things. One thing is never to boil it after adding a sour cream, though it’s hard to do, especially when adding sour cream mixed with flour, as flour needs some boiling (or at least a high temperature)

Hey, this is my approach (after trying many things). To thicken a soup I make a roux (zaprasku) and add in a soup, it always works when you make roux right and not clumpy.

I add sour cream to a soup when serving it and when it’s off the stove.

It works better. If anybody has a better way I want to hear it too, as I still don’t know how to make it right.

OK – I talked to my mom (the Slovak culinary genius) about this as I was very curious… Here’s her take on it – there are several different recommendations, so I’ll set them out individually:
1. the ‘smotana na varenie’ is equivalent to our table cream (about 17% fat). You can use that instead of the sour cream.
2. if you are using sour cream, she suggests diluting it (with table cream, milk or water) before mixing it with flour
3. as recommended previously, put the whole mixture through a strainer to ensure it’s all mixed properly (she suggests straining it into a separate bowl so when you’re ready to add it, it’s quick and you’re not messing around with a strainer and trying to stir the soup all at the same time).
4. mix it in quick – she prefers using a whisk rather than a wooden spoon to blend everything together
5. I think this is the key – hold off on the vinegar for a minute or two until the sour cream mixture is completely dissolved – the vinegar is what causes the milk/sour cream to curdle (as an experiment – see what happens when you pour some lemon juice into milk). She actually recommends skipping out on the vinegar altogether if you’re using sour cream as the vinegar then becomes redundant.
Hope this helps solve this issue. I made this soup with her about 3 weeks ago, but she made it from memory and I just did what I was told (no thinking required) and it turned out awesome (no clumps) so I’m pretty sure this will work.
Tomorrow, I attempt Segedinsky gulas for the first time ever! Wish me luck!

I always use a whisk when blending. Take the room temperature sour cream and whisk in the flour in a separate bowl. When blended, slowly add in some of the warm/hot broth. When it gets a smooth consistency whisk it into your pot of soup. I do the same when it comes to making stroganoff or dishes where you add sour cream.

Rado, try adding vinegar only to the individual bowls of soup, as that tends to separate with milk if cooked.

Also, as an alternative for a much lighter (and tastier) soup, instead of adding flour, when cooking potatoes add one largish grated potato (grated into mush). This potato will thicken the soup but make it extra light. Also, you won’t see the grainy bits, as you tend to if you add flour. + it’s then suitable for anyone who can’t digest gluten.

You can make exactly same soup with dark brown lentils and various types of dried beans soaked overnight & rinsed (mine faves are the gigantic beans).

Hello, This is the first time I ever looked on-line for examples of my mom’s Hungarian recipes and I did see some for the green bean soup with rantash (roll the rrrr) gravy (roux)with sour cream and paprika, so similar to what I have been making for over 65 years. My mother was born in a village near Budapest Hungary and came to this county at age 7 in 1914 along with my grandmother and 11 other family members. They came to Ellis Island from Hungary and sailed on a ship out of Hamburg, Germany right before WW1brok out. A 9 foot model of that ship is in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Ill. In Hungry in order to supplement the family’s income my grandmother cooked for rich people in the village. The older children, my aunts and uncles worked as tenant farmers and for each 4 bushels of produce they picked, the family could keep one. Sometimes when they could get away with it, they would dig a hole and bury 1 bushel basket then put another basket of produce on top hiding the one below to add to the 1 they could take home. So the recipe I learned from my mother came from this Hungarian village so many years ago in the late 1800’s. There is one Hungarian recipe book that starts out with: —-first you steal a chicken, then—-Etc. My family were not gypsy’s but The early Hungarian gypsy’s were noted for stealing! Stealing probably out of necessity!
My mom’s recipe called to start the soup with some kind of meat; pork shoulder or sausage or some such cut if they could afford meat. My mom used some beef plate and a soup bone or a piece of smoked pork butt. It took her 2 days to make her soup because everything she put in including the meat was left overnight outside or in the frig to form a fatty film which the next day was ladled off with a spatula and thrown away and then the liquid was put in a colander and only the broth was used to make the soup with the fresh cut green beans added then and a few more fresh carrots, celery,sometimes turnips, potatoes, fresh parsley and dill salt and pepper to taste. The meat was set aside, cooled with the good parts of the meats cut into bite pieces and returned to the soup pot at the end right before the roux was added the next day. The roux (rantash gravy) was then made with about 2 tablespoons of flour and a little oil. Butter was added but not a whole lot because all butter is apt to burn under high heat. You really have to be careful. Don’t walk away from it. The flour and oil or shortening or grease was stirred very frequently under low heat with a wooden spoon until the mixture was the color of caramel. If it got too thick she would add more oil a very little at a time into the gravy. (Roux) The heat was turned off and the gravy was left alone for a few minutes before adding a tablespoon or more to taste, of sweet Hungarian (SZEGED) paprika. It sizzled when the paprika was added and made the whole mixture very brown, almost red color and smelled so good and pungent. Cooled down, a little soup from the pot was added and stirred into the roux mixture and then returned back to the pot to thicken and add flavor and smell like no other dish is the world. When that mixture was cooking on very low,was when the white or apple cider vinegar was added to the pot.
Starting out with 1 table spoon then adding more to taste. Not until the soup was ladled out in the dishes did she add a dollop of sour cream to each serving. It was stirred into the soup dishes and devoured with a little home made bread and real butter or sometimes rye bread or cornbread. After dinner, she served some sweet Tokay wine with dessert.

I’ve been making this since I helped my mom when I was 6 years old. Over 40+ years at least and I wanted mine to be as smooth as my mama’a soup. It wasn’t until maybe the last decade or so that I found out on my own that when mixing the flour,paprika,and butter that this is a good time to mix in the sour cream at the end.It blends well and with mixing it smooths things out. If you wait until the pan ingredients cool off a bit it will work out better. Also I add a heaping tablespoon of minced garlic.

I remember my grandma & mom removing some broth and letting it cool and mixing the sour cream with this cooler broth. Once the mixture was a smooth consistency, they then slowly added this mixture to the full pot of soup.

For those of you who are having a problem with sour cream curdling whether in soup or paprikash, here is what you need to do:

If thickening soups or broth, add the flour to the sour cream. You do not need to mix the butter and flour to make a roux if you do this. Blend that flour in well. Then add some of the hot broth–a little at a time, to the sour cream-flour mixture or just the plain sour cream. You want to bring the sour cream up closer to the soup temperature. Also make sure that the soup is not boiling–have it on a low simmer. After the sour cream is blended with the broth and is also hot, slowly pour into simmering, not boiling broth while stirring. You do NOT want to bring the soup back up to a boil or it will curdle. If you want to thicken the soup, remember: Blend the flour into the sour cream first.

Yes, curdling the sour cream in the soup is my problem. I am going to make a sour bean soup tomorrow. I would try Def Kat’s suggestions but I can’t since I do not have a sour cream at home and do not feel like going to a grocery store in this heat (42 degrees Celsius). Also I have a whole milk at home so I will use it. I guess it is almost like a table cream, maybe little bit less fatty. I will report the result.
Also does anyone know what is the equivalent of slovakian creams and sour creams (slahacky a kyselej smotany) to US creams and sour creams in regards to a fat content percentage? For example, my mom talks about creams she refers to their fat percentage. Like 16% kysla smotana, for example. Here in US I found that some Half%Half and whipping creams in had a fat percentage marked on the package, I guess it was “Total milk fat” or something similar and that percentage is different then the total fat percentage you can find in the “Nutrition Facts” chart. Those two values are different, the “Nutrition Facts” chart’s fat value is percent daily value in one serving size (serving size is different for each product). The milk fat value percentage is just portion of milk fat in the product regardless of its volume. And I’ve seen this vaue only on a few milk products probably from one manufacturer. Knowing this value would help me out to decide what US cream to use when my mom tells me, for exaple, 10%-na smotana, 33%-na smotana, etc…

My Slovak grandmother made a wonderful version of the Green Bean soup. She always included cubed potatoes and cubed pork shoulder or loin, along with the rest of the ingredients. I’m a pretty accomplished cook and I’ve tried some of the suggestions posted here, just to see if there’s any improvement over her soup. Her’s is still the best! I found that it’s absolutely mandatory to use sour cream and the vinegar. Both are important to the final taste of the dish. The addition of the potatoes and the pork added a great deal of interest and flavor. A little curdling of this soup is natural and to be expected. It does not detract from the taste. I you make a proper roux, you will not have any lumps. And, of course, always add the sour cream off the heat and do not boil once it’s added. The soup can be rewarmed slowly, without boiling and the it will not curdle as much.

I made a bean soup with white ordinary beans. I did a simpler version, with whole milk only. And no roux, I only mixed milk with a flour in separate bowl and it did not clumped when I mixed it into the soup. I added vinegar on the very end and did not boiled anymore. And no clumps. Soup was good, although not as good as my grandmom used to make it. I will do it again.

Thanks for the link. I would try a whipping cream next time, only problem I have with whipping cream is that when I read a label I see some stuff that I do not trust. Some additives or chemicals or whatever it is. Not sure right now whether it applies to whipping cream or heavy one, I need to take a look next time in grocery store.

Hmmm…. there shouldn’t be any additives in whipping cream (before whipping, of course). If anything, just the dairy portion and some vitamins. When all else fails, go for the organic. Not sure how readily available that is where you live, but we have it in almost every grocery store and it’s not that much more expensive than the regular stuff. I find it’s worth getting organic in the dairy department (you never know what steroids or hormones those cows are given here….)

It looks like this soup has so many variations…:-) Anyway, I went to a grocery store and compared several diary products regular versus organic ones, such as sour cream, plain yogurt, whipping and heavy whipping creams. The result is sad, organic stuff contains pretty much just a pure product while the non organic stuff contains some pure product plus all different kinds of chemicals, preservatives, additives and replacements. That’s how industry is cheating on us. When it comes to produce, I’ve been buying a large portion of organics for some time already.

I remember my Slovak “Baba” making this. My wife and I were at a Farmer’s market and I got some green beans. I mentioned this wonderful soup my Baba used to make with green beans, potatoes and sour milk. We got home and I found this recipe. We have made it twice already and it is as great as I remember. We had it last night and my wife reduced the water so the soup was thick and hearty. I added more dill since I love the taste of dill in anything. We ate it with hard crusted Artisan bread for dipping. I am going to share it with a couple friends that I told about it.

That’s definitely possible. There are many variations on every Slovak recipe. It seems to me that every village made things differently. Most of these dishes probably originated by folks trying out different combinations of stuff that was left in their pantry. If you had bacon, you threw it in. Dried mushrooms, why not? Soups are definitely an important part of Slovak cuisine. They are a good way to make yourself feel full with less meat, and are also a good way to use up foods you would otherwise throw out. But because of all this, you also end up with so many different variations. In one of the cookbooks I use, there are over 100 soup recipes. Many of them are quite similar to each other. For instance, their potato soup and mushroom soup recipes are the same, except that one has more potatoes and the other has more mushrooms.

I was born in Prague but I learn this soup in Trancin. Is one of my Favorite one pot meal.

I start cook cube potatoes ,i water with little sugar , salt, pepper and vinegar just litlle, when is half way cook add green beans.smoke butt cube. when is almost done I fry onion with smoke sausage back home was chabajka with just little hot paprika and mix in cook maybe 10 more minutes . turn off and mix in sour cream or greek jogurt wisk with some flour (if use jogurt soup do not need vinegar).and last you can add chop hard boil eggs. It is so good hot or cold special second day. I do make same soup with kidney beans from can or kapustnica

I stumbled across this website looking for a Green Bean Soup recipe. I had never heard of Green Bean Soup before today and had to research the basic recipe. In doing so ran across this website – I love it! My husband’s family is German and Slovak cooking is very close to German cooking/baking. Will be bookmarking this site to refer back to often!

Thank you, Susan. You should try making this soup, it’s really delicious. And what part of Germany is your husband’s family from? I have only been to Munich (twice, last time on a way to Mongolia by train, http://www.iamlubos.com/travel/sib/sib1.php), but I absolutely love that town. I am thinking about moving there for a bit after I finish school. Even though I am originally from Europe, I spent most my adult life here in the States. It would be nice to go back to Europe for few years to get to know the old continent.

I would like to know if there is another way to do the cabbage to make halupki other than steaming. I don’t make it as often as I would cause I always scald myself and working with the cabbage is a real nuisance. I tried freezing the head of cabbage but found that also changed the texture.
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

My mom always scalded/steamed cabbage days before she nedded to use them and either put them in the refrigerator or freezer. Took them out one freezer bag at a time and made them as needed/wanted. They were always the best halupki in town! Everyone wanted her to make them for their parties and family gatherings

It turned out great. One thing i would do is throw the beans before to cook them, since potatoes cook faster. Also i would omit vinegar. Sour cream adds already taste to soup. I didnt have dill so i added bacon or sausage. 🙂 Dakujem za recept lubos.

Oh and wanted to add that im going to tackle fazulovu polievu i remembered it much growing up and it sure got around. This soup was delish. Im not big fan of green beans i think maybe it is american thing 😉 But everyone like it different :0)

Hi All, I was anxious to try this recipe but was hesitant after reading the comments on the sour cream curdling. So, I did my own spin on the recipe in a very similiar way that I make my split green pea soup…..It came out absolutely fantastic!
*Melt a tablespoon bacon fat in a stock pot
*Add 2 finely chopped large onions & sauté
*Add 2 rings of chopped Hillshire brand Polska Kielbasa & sauté
*Add 3 quarts of water & bring to a boil
*Add 6 potatoes large-diced
*Add 1-1/2 lbs of (fresh or frozen) cut green beans
*Add ½ teaspoon black pepper
*Add 2 teaspoons salt
*Add 1 heaping tablespoon vegetable base powder (optional: a good substitute for this would be 1-2 whole carrots & 1-2 stalks of celery that can be removed & discarded later)
*Add ½ teaspoon caraway seeds
*Add juice of ½ a lemon
*Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 2 hours
*Season further if necessary!

Kat, you can freeze the individul containers and add the sour cream or a heavy creem after you reheat the soup. I do it with most soups that call for sour cream. Some folks do not like sour cream and thus let everybody make their own choice.

Here is how to avoiding sour cream from curdling.
All you need to do is to add whisked sour cream to a soup at the very end, when the soup stops boiling (you can even add fat free plain yogurt to it if you want). This is how my mom would prepare these kinds of soups. Hope this help. Good luck!

My grandmother made the most delicious green bean soup. She never added sour cream. But she did fry bacon and make the thickening mixture with the grease from bacon and flour. All there was in her soup was the green beans, onions, potatos , bacon and that was it. I could eat it every day.

I love the bean soup! I use yellow wax beans, as my mom did, when I can find them. I use milk, instead of sour cream, and vinegar. I also like to add some pork or smoked sausage, potatoes, the zaprashka, and of course dill. It’s so delicious with a slice of pumpernickel or rye.

My Mother made Green Soup similarly while we were in Germany but I slim it down a bit for myself.
I cook the fresh green beans and pieces of potato with two bay leaves, salt, pepper and 1 tsp Tumeric. In about twenty minutes I add two links of Turkey sausage (the long kind)
In another skilled I crystallize an onion in Coconut Oil, then add whole wheat flour thinned in water, then add mixture to soup
I do not add Sour Cream but eat the soup after heating it for another two minutes so mixture thickens.
My Mother also added bacon

I made the soup on Saturday using fresh yellow wax beans as my mom did in the summer. I added a link of sliced Polish to it with the potatoes, dill, 1/2&1/2, and vinegar, and the zaprushka. We had pumpernickel bread with it. SO delicious. We finished it up for lunch on Sunday. Mom used to make this in the winter with canned beans and she used bacon.

This is close to the green bean soup recipe that was handed down from my paternal grandmother to my mother. Try using the drippings from about 1/2 lb of fried bacon to make the roux instead of butter. We dice the bacon before frying and add it to the soup when crisp. Then add flour to the drippings and stir until it gets a nice caramel or copper color. Slowly add that to the beans and potatoes until well blended. (you may not need it all) Then add a little milk instead of sour cream. Also, use a bay leaf while cooking the beans. We add the apple cider vinegar at the table because some like more than others.

I made this soup for dinner tonight and everyone loved it. The only thing different that I did was to add a few more potatoes and a parsnip since my bag of green beans was 12oz instead of 16oz and after the first bowl we individually added more vinegar. Perfect hearty soup for a cold winter night! Will be trying more of your recipes.

This reminds me of making tomatoe soup. To neutralize, always add a pinch, small pinch of baking soda then add the dairy. Maybe this will help the sour cream mix in. Just a thought. I will be trying it today.

Thank you SlovakCooking.com. I followed recipe using yellow wax beans. Took advice to thin sour cream with milk found in the replies section. I still added vinegar – for my taste sour cream alone is not sour enough.
Very tasty. My 10 year old loved it too.

My Bushings made this soup using yellow wax beans. It’s important to let the base soup cool completely before adding the sour cream mixture.
once it is added and mixed in well, reheat the soup. It will not cuddle that way.

I made this soup a couple times now. My husband loves it. The one thing i did differnt is fried some bacon and added my flour to it. I did have problems with the sour cream lumping as well. I think when you add the vingar it makes it lump up. I have not tried tempering it as suggested. I think that would help and maybe the heavy cream instead of sour cream. Yummy!! I am making it this week-end. The bacon added a wonderful flavor.I didn’t use any butter.

I was curious to see what others think and do regarding green bean soup and happily found this site for some thoughts and ideas. Was a favorite of my childhood even though always ate it hot in July and August with no air-conditioning. My Bohemian grandmother, who arrived at Ellis Island on Christmas Eve with an 10-month old in 1912, made the soup the way my dad and mom did and now I do. We do use butter and flour to make a roux to add to the cooked beans and potatoes and dill (not a lot of water!) and then add a can of evaporated milk and simmer to thicken and then serve the sour cream and vinegar at the table. Never any meat of any kind and only made with fresh green beans and potatoes and dill from the garden which is why we only had it in July and August! I just get everything from the farmer’s market … do not know how they did everything they did and have a huge garden! Thanks everyone for sharing … I always send my favorite cousin a picture of my green bean soup because we loved it while growing up together! We both still make and love it!

Hi, I was out today and stopped by a Resturante which
featured green been soup for the day. I really enjoyed the taste as it was delish.
My thoughts are to prepare the green bean soup; and I wanted to thank you all for the comments and hints. It will be a first for me.
God Bless

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